Tuesday, April 05, 2011

In the Company of Goats

It is a strange experience to be at eye-level with a goat: particularly one that is kneeling down to have a drink from the swimming pool that you are in. When I thought about ‘wildlife’- we were in a National Tiger Reserve, after all, goats were not the first creature on my list. But these goats came, and they wandered, they drank, and they squatted or walked up and down on the porch of our little dark-red cottage in the woods as if it were home. And it was, for all intents and purposes, surely.

That first afternoon, after the encounter with these other-wordly, marble-eyed creatures, we made our way like lemmings down into the rock-framed infinity pool that we had so longingly eyed on our way to the cottage. It was everything. First we each chose one of the flat rocks bordering the water, and like lizards in the sun, simply sat the afternoon away. Oh how transparently city-weary we were! To hear the silence and to count the ripples on the water were for us, bliss. Then, a plunge. There was even a tree-house as part of the view, weaving in and out of sight with the wind.

Later, the rain. Not the weary urban showers that fill the city like a teacup, but wild, fresh rain that sounds like a war on the tin roofs.

1 comment:

Friend
said...

Hehehe Lemmings! And then, what about that calf pretending to be a goat, and 'Beef Jerky', that uneasy cow :) And there were those most intense words I've heard in recent times..."Get back in the jeep...slowly."